Piles of coal are shown at NRG Energy's W.A. Parish Electric Generating Station Wednesday, March 16, 2011, in Thompsons, Texas. The plant, which operates natural gas and coal-fired units, is one of the largest power plants in the United States. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will begin regulating mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants for the first time, the latest in a string of new regulations that has Republicans bent on reining in the federal body. The new rules will have the greatest impact on Texas, home to more coal-fired power plants than any other state. (AP Photo) less

Piles of coal are shown at NRG Energy's W.A. Parish Electric Generating Station Wednesday, March 16, 2011, in Thompsons, Texas. The plant, which operates natural gas and coal-fired units, is one of the largest ... more

Photo: STF

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The coal-fired Plant Scherer, one of the nation's top carbon dioxide emitters, stands in the distance in Juliette, Ga., Saturday, June, 3, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump declared Thursday he was pulling the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement, striking a major blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming and distancing the country from its closest allies abroad. (AP Photo/Branden Camp) less

The coal-fired Plant Scherer, one of the nation's top carbon dioxide emitters, stands in the distance in Juliette, Ga., Saturday, June, 3, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump declared Thursday he was pulling the ... more

Photo: Branden Camp, FRE

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Sleek white wind turbines, 25 stories tall, rise from the plains of West Texas in Big Spring. Texas is one of the windiest states in the nation and the Panhandle and West Texas are the state's windiest regions.

Sleek white wind turbines, 25 stories tall, rise from the plains of West Texas in Big Spring. Texas is one of the windiest states in the nation and the Panhandle and West Texas are the state's windiest regions.

Photo: CAROLYN MARY BAUMAN, STF

Trump faces next climate hurdle

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump, three months after he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords, faces another critical decision in how far he is willing to go to undo federal efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The president is expected to soon decide whether to overturn the government finding on which the climate change rules put into place by the Obama administration are built. That finding, which determined that global warming endangers public health, established the legal basis for the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels - considered by scientists as the primary cause of rising global temperatures. Eliminating it would leave the administration free to ignore greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite a pledge to do just that, Trump, as with several other issues, is discovering again that it is easier to say something on the campaign trail that get it done through the complicated machinery of government. And again, he is walking the line between true believers who want him to follow through on his pledge to overturn the so-called endangerment finding and pragmatists who see years of court battles ahead with uncertain results.

Indeed, the expectation among some close to the Trump administration is the EPA will stop short of repealing the endangerment finding and merely water down climate change regulations, including the so-called Clean Power Plan, which would force the shuttering of many of the country's coal plants.

"I think they're going to come up with something far less onerous," said Stephen Moore, a Trump campaign adviser and economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Taking on the endangerment finding, it's such a sensitive topic. That's an 800-pound tiger the left will fiercely resist."

A public health risk

Trump, who has railed against climate change as an overblown theory perpetuated by a politicized scientific establishment, will make his decision against the backdrop of deadly storms, including Hurricane Harvey, which have brought climate policy to the forefront again. It's still unclear how the administration and the EPA, led by another climate-change skeptic, Scott Pruitt, will act.

An EPA spokeswoman would say only that the endangerment rule is under review. "Administrator Pruitt encourages the exchange of ideas and is committed to a robust dialogue on the science related to carbon dioxide," she said.

Regulating carbon dioxide, which is produced by everything from cattle farming to volcanoes to humans themselves, has long been controversial. But in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide meets the legal definition of a pollutant.

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The EPA made its endangerment ruling on carbon dioxide in 2009, finding that carbon dioxide's contribution to global warming posed a grave risk to public health and welfare. From increased heat waves and flooding, to wildfires and plagues of insects, the threats to humanity are voluminous, the report said.

The endangerment finding has already complicated Trump's efforts to roll back Obama-era climate rules. Earlier this year, judges on the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled that the administration has a legal obligation "to regulate greenhouse gases," essentially forcing it to replace the Clean Power Plan and not simply repeal it as Trump preferred. Pruitt has submitted a draft proposal to regulate power plant emissions to the Office of Management and Budget for review, according to a court filing.

"It may be a judgment you don't need to go after the endangerment finding to block air emissions standards," said Jason Bordoff, a top climate change official in the Obama White House and now a professor at Columbia University. "It's not an easy thing to undo the endangerment finding. It's based on thousands of pages of research by the EPA, which you would have to redo and then defend it in court."

Legal challenges

Conservative groups have pressured Trump to follow through on his campaign pledge but are starting to back off as they recognize the legal challenges that would lay ahead. Myron Ebell, a Trump campaign adviser, said getting rid of the endangerment finding would make it far more difficult for future administration's to adopt climate policies, but he understood, "the imperative to do so is lacking."

If Pruitt's proposal for replacing the Clean Power Plan holds up in court, "they don't have anything really pushing them to reopen the endangerment finding," said Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank. "You can push that decision down the road."

Pruitt is engaging in what the administration has termed a "red team, blue team" exercise, in which experts with opposing points of view debate the scientific arguments for addressing climate change - an approach also endorsed by Energy Secretary Rick Perry. While the overwhelming consensus of scientists believes humans are the primary cause of climate change, there remains disagreement as to how the earth's ecosystems are likely to respond to higher temperatures.

The administration has, at times, sent mixed signals about its climate policy. In a recent appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil CEO, said there is a chance the U.S. could stay in the Paris climate agreement "under the right conditions."

But anyone thinking Trump might be softening on climate change better think again, the White House said recently, insisting it had no plans to stay in the Paris agreement unless it was renegotiated - something world leaders have said is a nonstarter.

Climate change regulations have often been overshadowed by other developments, from the standoff with North Korea to the crackdown on illegal immigration to the efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. But, Ebell said, Trump's base still wants the Obama climate policy undone.

"We're still pushing on Paris," Ebell said. "You want to keep up the drumbeat so he doesn't think conservatives have lost interest."